Editorial: War villain's capture overdue

Thursday

Jul 31, 2008 at 12:01 AMJul 31, 2008 at 3:43 AM

The world has seen plenty of murderous political villains, but Radovan Karadzic may rank right up there with the Pinochets and Papa Docs of the 20th century. It's welcome news, then, that the former Bosnian Serb leader was finally nabbed last week more than a decade after he went into hiding.

The world has seen plenty of murderous political villains, but Radovan Karadzic may rank right up there with the Pinochets and Papa Docs of the 20th century. It's welcome news, then, that the former Bosnian Serb leader was finally nabbed last week more than a decade after he went into hiding.

Now 63, Karadzic amassed quite a list of alleged atrocities during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, a conflict fought not so much through battles but through ethnic violence and sieges. Those not old enough to remember the war but who pay attention to current ones should bone up on Eastern Europe's happenings after the collapse of the Soviet Union. History shows that terrible things happen in a power vacuum, and that the Western world must pay intimate attention to keep new villains from replacing old ones.

For his part Karadzic, the former president of the self-declared Serbian Republic, is thought to have masterminded the 1995 Srebrenica massacre - a brutal event during which Serb forces slaughtered 8,000 Muslim men and boys and buried them in mass graves. Karadzic also is accused in the shelling of Sarajevo, and of using as human shields dozens of U.N. peacekeepers sent to the tense region.

For these and other alleged war crimes Karadzic must now face a United Nations tribunal, which has indicted him on 11 counts, including genocide, extermination and persecution.

We trust his prosecution will be expedient, and if convicted, his punishment harsh. Too often the monsters populating the planet are never brought to justice.

On that note, it's amazing Karadzic was able to hide - in plain sight, and with help from Serbian sympathizers - for 13 years until police pulled him off a Belgrade bus. A psychiatrist by profession, Karadzic had reinvented himself as a New Age spiritual healer. Using an assumed name and a wacky getup - oversized glasses, black robe, Santa Claus beard - he walked the streets freely and reportedly had his own Web site.

In staid Belgrade, didn't this guy stand out?

Again, students of modern history should note that when a fugitive mass murderer enjoys tacit support from a civilian population, those hunting him must turn the screws on the nation thought to be harboring the villain. The $5 million bounty on Karadzic's head wasn't enough. Rather, the new, pro-Western president of Serbia, Boris Tadic, reportedly may have pressured police to nab Karadzic. Not a bad offering for a Serbia eager to join the European Union.

Whatever prompted his capture, Karadzic's trial at The Hague may help lay to rest some of the lingering ghosts of the 1990s war. Meanwhile, there are plenty of baddies still out there, including Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic. May they get their day in court, as well.